For ages, Sanatana Dharma believed in harmony, togetherness without any considerations, and unity. It is a travesty that we lost our way somewhere in between to create an artificial divide among us, as high and low.

“May you move in harmony, speak in one voice, and let your minds be in agreement, just as the ancient gods shared their portion of sacrifice.

May our purpose be the same; may we all be of one mind. For such unity to form, I offer a common prayer.

May our intentions and aspirations be alike so that a common objective unifies us all."

The divide that came between people had to be removed. Many Mahapurushas along the length and breadth of Bharat Varsha strived to remove this divide and restore equality. Sri Narayana Guru, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Swatantra Vir Savarkar, Mahakavi Bharatiyar, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Sahajananda and Mahatma Ayyankali are some of the great people who immersed themselves in this yajna of restoring equality.

The temple entry movement was one of the most significant movements that fought caste oppression. In some places, the struggle bore fruit within a few years, and in others, it took generations, like the Kalaram Temple entry movement started by Ambedkar in 1930. This took another 51 years and the relentless zeal of a (now) hundred-year-old organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to succeed and complete the Yajna Babasaheb Ambedkar started. It was in 1981 that Swayamsewaks led a team of five Dalit community elders to enter, offer prayers and light a lamp in the Kalaram Temple.

Vaidhyanatha Iyer was another temple entry movement beacon from South India. Along with Sri Muthuramalinga Thevar and other Congress leaders, he bravely led a group of Dalits and other castes into the famous Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai. But who was A Vaidhyanatha Iyer? Here, we try to find some answers about who he is.

Arunachalam Iyer was a mathematics teacher at Maharaja’s School in Pudukkottai. Vaidhyanatha Iyer was the second of eight children Arunachalam Iyer and his wife Lakshmi Ammal had. Vaidhyanatha Iyer was born in Vishnampetta, a village in Thanjavur district, on May 16, 1890.

After he retired from Maharaja’s School, Arunachalam Iyer settled in Madurai, where his children were educated. Vaidhyanatha Iyer studied at the famous Sethupathi High School in Madurai. He was an intelligent student and finished his SSLC there in 1909. His father’s son, he stood first in the state in Mathematics and was second in the state in the overall rankings, winning him a gold medal from the school. He joined the illustrious Madura College, Madurai, for his FA (Faculty of Arts was an intermediate degree before joining Under Graduation those days). There, too, he was a topper and maintained his........

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